Virtual Reality in 2020: How Life Went Virtual During the Pandemic

When you hear the term ‘virtual reality,’ you may reflexively imagine a casual VR user sporting a headset and gripping a game controller, fumbling around an arcade or living room.

However, as VR’s use cases flourish, the concept of a ‘typical VR user’ or an ‘average VR experience’ will soon disappear. Virtual reality technology has been on the market for some time. Still, nothing has solidified its value and relevance to numerous dimensions of everyday life, like the new reality of our lives under lockdown following the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this article

1. Virtual Reality Has Taken Off Under Lockdown
2. Virtual and Augmented Reality for Businesses
3. Eight Industries That Are Being Revolutionized by Virtual Reality
4. Finding the Right Voice for Your Virtual Reality Project

VR startups have been selling headsets and developing new apps, games and experiences for several years. Still, several factors have slowed the general public’s adoption of the medium. First, headsets are costly for the average consumer.

One typically needs a smartphone or PC to run the applications and high-speed internet to enable the seamless, immersive experiences that make VR worth the hassle. According to technology research firm Omdia, only 26 million consumer headsets are owned globally.

However, any uncertainties surrounding the medium’s ability to catch on have begun to subside with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting stay-at-home guidelines.

With unprecedented numbers of people cooped up indoors, suddenly stripped of many fundamental aspects of their regular lives — like traveling or going to concerts with friends — those who had previously viewed VR as a medium reserved for gamers are now donning headsets to compensate for the activities they can’t do under lockdown or to gain a much-needed change of scenery from beyond the four walls where they spend most of their time.

Experts don’t anticipate this year’s increased interest in VR will be left behind in 2020, either. Over the past few years, a range of new VR applications beyond gaming and entertainment have begun to take hold, and they promise to revolutionize how some industries operate.

From travel to architecture to e-commerce, many new sectors were already hard at work integrating VR into their everyday practices — something that the global pandemic has only accelerated. Now, here we are.

Virtual Reality Has Taken Off Under Lockdown

Lockdown has forced us to get creative about how we communicate with one another. Certain connective technologies became essential aspects of our lives in what feels like overnight, from video conferencing software like Skype and Zoom being used for everything from college lectures to collaborating on projects remotely to the range of new technologies being developed in an attempt to recreate the feeling of interacting with others face to face.

The virtual reality startup Spatial, which bills itself as “Zoom meets Slack,” takes a user’s photo and turns it into a holographic avatar that can collaborate with other teammates’ avatars in a virtual workspace. Since lockdown guidelines were implemented in March 2020, the startup has reportedly experienced a 1,000% percent surge in usage. Then there’s argodesign’s new concept, ‘the Square,’ which uses an LCD screen equipped with four cameras to produce a 3D image, as opposed to a flat screen, of the person standing in front of it. It tracks your gaze as you look around the screen to create an illusion of depth.

The sole purpose of virtual reality shouldn’t simply be to enable us to collaborate as if we’re close together in an office or classroom, even when we’re all isolated in our abodes. “The environment around us matters,” writes Forbes, underscoring that COVID-19 has clarified that “there has never been a greater need for technologies that can help us enhance limited physical environments.”

Gaming and entertainment, the segment of the virtual reality market that was the most profitable before the onset of COVID-19, has continued to pick up speed — but in addition to fast-paced video games, it’s being harnessed for more leisurely experiences, too. Virtual reality can transport you from the humdrum landscape of your living room to visually arresting environments like Mount Everest, with Everest VR: Journey to the Top of the World, or a series of serene outdoor settings that you’re able to journey through at your own pace, as in Nature Treks VR.

Beyond delivering us to the peak of the world’s highest mountain, developers have stepped in to craft immersive environments that simulate some of the most cherished everyday experiences we haven’t been able to participate in since the pandemic struck. British VR company vTime partnered with City Football Group to offer users the chance to watch sports from a pub setting alongside friends. Bigscreen VR also enables users to commune with friends, but this time, it’s to play games, hang out and watch movies and live events from an actual virtual movie theater.

Virtual and Augmented Reality for Businesses

Virtual reality isn’t just the next big consumer trend. In fact, in the not-so-distant future, the technology may prove to be even more valuable in various professional contexts. According to Forbes, “Enterprises are adopting VR twice as fast as consumers.” With travel greatly diminished and on-site work facing heightened restrictions, the ability to simulate an environment or action using little more than a headset only increases VR’s benefits for work. Based on a report published by ARtillery Intelligence, the use of VR within businesses is anticipated to grow from $829 million in 2018 to $4.26 billion in 2023.

The same goes for the increased use of augmented reality for corporate purposes. Augmented reality is wielded for flexible on-the-job training, work meetings, and customer service. In the 2020 XR Industry Insight report, a survey of AR companies showed that only 37% are developing products and software for consumers, while “65% of the AR companies surveyed said they are working on industrial applications.”

In 2019, about $19 billion was spent on virtual and augmented reality products, with a large portion of this spending attributed to the healthcare, automotive manufacturing and education industries. To underline this shift, a 2019 PwC report forecasted that “nearly 23.5 million jobs worldwide would be using AR and VR by 2030 for training, work meetings or to provide customer service.”

With virtual reality decisively picking up steam and stepping in to fill the gaps created by lockdown, VR will undoubtedly be a beneficial utility well into the future.

Here are eight industries that are taking advantage of VR’s capabilities. Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are gradually reinventing the workflows of many of these sectors and can potentially leave an enduring imprint on how we experience our world.

Eight Industries That Are Being Revolutionized by Virtual Reality

Travel and Tourism

The pandemic dealt the tourism industry a pretty harsh blow. Without the opportunity to travel, many are turning to their headsets to simulate the experience of getting out of the house, whether to calm down during a tranquil walk through a forest or meet up with friends for a virtual movie screening.

However, Norm Rose, a senior technology analyst with Phocuswright, sees the potential for virtual reality to help travelers plan vacations and research destinations once the pandemic has subsided. “VR can help people plan an actual vacation,” Rose explains.

Companies that have similarly tapped into this opportunity include VResorts. This online travel agency creates 360-degree virtual tours of hotels and resorts that VR users can experience while determining where they would like to book a stay. “The next phase in travel booking,” says Romain Baron, chief marketing officer for VResorts, “is the VR phase. Early adopters will want VR as proof before booking somewhere, similar to how we use online reviews for proof today.”

QuaQua and Sygic Travel are two other companies offering virtual tours to virtual tours of popular travel destinations. At the same time, SkyLights and Inflight VR have a stake in the travel industry by providing VR headsets with a library of in-flight entertainment for passengers to enjoy while flying from one destination to the next.

Events and Conferences 

This year, conference after conference, we were forced to cancel or postpone due to pandemic-related travel restrictions and distancing guidelines. Yet a few of these conferences were miraculously still able to go ahead, thanks to the capabilities of virtual reality. For example, HTC, maker of the VIVE headset, decided to stream its Virtual VIVE Ecosystem Conference in virtual reality this year. A whopping 1.1 million people viewed the livestream.

Another event that pivoted to virtual reality in the nick of time was a conference held by the Laval Virtual Center, a hub for immersive technology in the French town of Laval. The virtual event, dubbed “Laval Virtual World,” spanned three days, featured 150 speakers, and amassed over 10,000 virtual attendees. Laval Virtual World turned to virtual software company VirBELA to host the conference, which allowed attendees to embody avatars in an environment that replicated the conference experience, complete with an auditorium where presentations took place and a picturesque outdoor mingling space.

Higher Education 

While several educational institutions rapidly transitioned to online instruction this spring, returning to campus is a reality for many students. At the same time, touring a series of potential college campuses isn’t the most straightforward activity for a would-be freshman, even without the pressure of a pandemic.

YouVisit is a service that provides virtual reality tours of several major college campuses in the United States. It enables students to immerse themselves in the environment where they may spend the next four or five years of their lives. While this tool is helpful under any circumstances, it’s grown even more valuable due to the pandemic’s travel restrictions.

Job Training

Workplace training may never be the same after virtual reality. Training programs through VR provide unprecedented ways to align large numbers of employees across remote distances and simulate on-the-job scenarios that were never possible before.

One company that has seized the potential of VR for workplace training is Strivr, which “offers modules for training employees to do everything from treating customers with empathy to dealing with an armed robbery in the workplace.” Walmart is one of the largest corporations that uses Strivr for all of its training, with more than 17,000 headsets distributed to its employees. Other growing use cases for virtual reality training include flight simulators for pilots in training and automotive manufacturers working with 3D models.

In many fields, theoretical training just won’t cut it. That’s why virtual reality can help by providing experiential training that can be constantly updated to keep up with evolving technology. Automakers such as Volkswagen, BMW, and Audi have implemented VR simulations for employee collaboration, vehicle assembly training, and virtual prototyping.

Real Estate

Designing and constructing new buildings is costly and requires rigorous planning. IrisVR is an innovative company that allows architecture, construction and engineering teams to create 3D models and experience spaces in real depth before they’re built.

Matterport is another game-changing company that captures interior spaces in immersive 3D. Its technology is helpful for various applications, including photographing and tagging retail spaces for e-commerce, 3D photography for the likes of Google Maps and the aforementioned vacation planning. However, one of Matterport’s primary uses has been to bring real estate to life in 3D, and many brokerages have been eager to adopt it. With a feature that enables users to trace and measure the dimensions of a space, Matterport makes it convenient to take an in-depth tour through a prospective living space without the need to leave your own.

E-commerce

While online shopping seems to have existed for as long as the internet has, virtual shopping is a particular trend that may take off under lockdown. E-commerce retailer Obsess developed several virtual stores that users can browse to discover clothing items off the rack, just like they would when wandering through a physical store. The immersive shopping experience engages customers, and for those who enjoy shopping more as a hobby than a means to an end, virtual showrooms may be the next big thing.

Shopify’s e-commerce platform enables vendors to craft their online stores using AR and VR. With Shopify AR, customers can interact with 3D models of products they’re considering purchasing by rotating them, zooming in on their details, and even using augmented reality to visualize the product in their home through their smartphone camera. According to Shopify’s data, “shoppers are 2.5x more likely to convert when interacting with 3D models.”

Arts and Culture

In the wake of the pandemic, most spaces where people typically seek communal cultural experiences closed their doors, and binge-streaming content from home became the go-to cultural pastime. If you prefer to visit museums and other cultural institutions, you may have initially assumed you were out of luck. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Google Arts & Culture, launched in 2011, offers many virtual reality tours of everything from James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington to the ancient ruins of Sicily’s Valle Dei Templi.

The award-winning Met 360 Project also invites users to explore various exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 360 degrees. Since the lockdown began, its digital team witnessed “a 4,106% growth in streaming viewership, with YouTube video views up 150%, and both socials and the website experiencing significant increases in engagement.”

When Art Basel canceled its Hong Kong edition earlier in the year, the annual art fair debuted a virtual replacement featuring online viewing rooms, 234 galleries, and 2,100 works. “Online exhibitions can do things that brick-and-mortar exhibitions can’t,” explains Lucas Zwirner of David Zwirner Gallery. “They can embed videos, longer excerpts of art-historically relevant material, and artist-created content.”

Fitness

With the temporary closure of gyms, most people’s personal living space automatically began to double as their exercise space. The fitness training app Supernatural is a godsend for those who feel more motivated to exercise when removed from the same setting where they live and work.

Released by VR studio Within, Supernatural allows users to wear their headsets and work in awe-inspiring locations with world-class trainers and uplifting pump-up music. The best part is that it can transform any old workout room into a beautiful backdrop that beats heading to the local gym. If VR fitness catches on, the possibilities it harbors for the future of exercise are pretty unlimited.

Finding the Right Voice for Your Virtual Reality Project

Virtual reality is an immersive medium that primarily relies on its visual nature to transport users to new, engrossing environments. For this reason, some VR developers and filmmakers underestimate the importance of sound in generating a wholly immersive experience.

Since virtual reality spans so many industries, selecting the right voice will depend on the project type you’re producing. The most sought-after qualities in a voice actor for video games include animated, aggressive, authentic, charismatic and authoritative vocal styles. However, suppose your immersive experience is intended for educational purposes. In that case, seeking out an articulate, educational, conversational, friendly or informative style of voice over will likely set you up for greater success.

Virtual reality is evolving how we experience the world, and as the medium hurtles into the future, your brand might as well join the ride. Find the perfect voice for your virtual reality or augmented reality project today.